Working Person's View of Minimum Wage Increases
Yes: After years of stagnation, millions of workers will benefit
Monday, December 04, 2006
JOHN SWEENEY
Working people have been stretched to the limit and this year, on Election Day, they snapped back. By the millions, voters turned out to change the direction of our country and, in part, to end the congressional stalemate on the minimum wage. Raising it is an economic and a moral issue.
In every state where the minimum wage was on the ballot as an initiative, it passed, including in Ohio, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana and Nevada. By huge margins, voters rejected the current $5.15 an hour as too low.
With the addition of the six states, 28 states and the District of Columbia now have minimum-wage laws above the federal $5.15.
It’s time to bring everyone up. No one can live, let alone raise a family, on $11,000 a year, which is more than a full-time minimum-wage worker earns annually. America needs a raise.
And even though most union members earn well above the minimum wage because of their contracts, the union movement will do everything possible to work with the new leadership in Washington to pass a higher national minimumwage floor. Working families need it; working families deserve it.
Imagine working full-time, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and not having enough money to pay rent, put gasoline in the car and eat. The idea is absurd, but for millions of Americans, it’s real.
Raising the minimum wage to $7.25 over 26 months will benefit an estimated 6.6 million workers directly and another 8.3 million indirectly, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
For 10 years, Congress has refused to approve a minimum-wage increase. But in that time, prices have skyrocketed. The costs of gasoline, food, housing, education and health care have increased, but wages have not. In fact, wages have gone down. The real value of the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest point since 1955. In terms of wages, we’ve gone back half a century.
At the same time wages have plummeted, productivity in the United States continues to soar. Since the most-recent economic recovery began in the fall of 2001, productivity has increased 13 percent. In other words, the economic pie is expanding, but workers’ wages are becoming an increasingly smaller slice of the pie.
Working people in America are squeezed.
Less than one-third of voters polled on Election Day believe they can pull ahead financially. The majority of Americans feel they are behind or simply breaking even. Scarier still, just one-third of people think life will be better for the next generation.
Voters in union households said the economy was one of two top factors behind how they cast their vote for the House, right up there with Iraq. Sixty-five percent said they are dissatisfied with today’s economy, according to Election Day polling done by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the AFL-CIO. When workers voted for change this year, it was, in considerable part, a vote for economic change.
In the final four days leading up to the election, union volunteers knocked on more than 3 million doors and heard variations on the same theme: Working people are tired of being left behind. We’re tired of policies that promote the interests of corporations at the expense of families. And we’re sick and tired of politicians who do the same.
That theme echoed throughout the country on Nov. 7 th, when working people voted for a change in course and for candidates that support working-family issues, such as raising the minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage is just a first step in getting America back on track. We need real economic change. From affordable health care and retirement security to good jobs and the freedom to form unions, we need bold, new answers to the questions working families confront every day.
The people have spoken. It’s time to get to work and it’s time to raise the minimum wage.
John Sweeney is president of the AFL-CIO.jsweeney@aflcio.org
Monday, December 04, 2006
JOHN SWEENEY
Working people have been stretched to the limit and this year, on Election Day, they snapped back. By the millions, voters turned out to change the direction of our country and, in part, to end the congressional stalemate on the minimum wage. Raising it is an economic and a moral issue.
In every state where the minimum wage was on the ballot as an initiative, it passed, including in Ohio, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana and Nevada. By huge margins, voters rejected the current $5.15 an hour as too low.
With the addition of the six states, 28 states and the District of Columbia now have minimum-wage laws above the federal $5.15.
It’s time to bring everyone up. No one can live, let alone raise a family, on $11,000 a year, which is more than a full-time minimum-wage worker earns annually. America needs a raise.
And even though most union members earn well above the minimum wage because of their contracts, the union movement will do everything possible to work with the new leadership in Washington to pass a higher national minimumwage floor. Working families need it; working families deserve it.
Imagine working full-time, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and not having enough money to pay rent, put gasoline in the car and eat. The idea is absurd, but for millions of Americans, it’s real.
Raising the minimum wage to $7.25 over 26 months will benefit an estimated 6.6 million workers directly and another 8.3 million indirectly, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
For 10 years, Congress has refused to approve a minimum-wage increase. But in that time, prices have skyrocketed. The costs of gasoline, food, housing, education and health care have increased, but wages have not. In fact, wages have gone down. The real value of the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest point since 1955. In terms of wages, we’ve gone back half a century.
At the same time wages have plummeted, productivity in the United States continues to soar. Since the most-recent economic recovery began in the fall of 2001, productivity has increased 13 percent. In other words, the economic pie is expanding, but workers’ wages are becoming an increasingly smaller slice of the pie.
Working people in America are squeezed.
Less than one-third of voters polled on Election Day believe they can pull ahead financially. The majority of Americans feel they are behind or simply breaking even. Scarier still, just one-third of people think life will be better for the next generation.
Voters in union households said the economy was one of two top factors behind how they cast their vote for the House, right up there with Iraq. Sixty-five percent said they are dissatisfied with today’s economy, according to Election Day polling done by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the AFL-CIO. When workers voted for change this year, it was, in considerable part, a vote for economic change.
In the final four days leading up to the election, union volunteers knocked on more than 3 million doors and heard variations on the same theme: Working people are tired of being left behind. We’re tired of policies that promote the interests of corporations at the expense of families. And we’re sick and tired of politicians who do the same.
That theme echoed throughout the country on Nov. 7 th, when working people voted for a change in course and for candidates that support working-family issues, such as raising the minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage is just a first step in getting America back on track. We need real economic change. From affordable health care and retirement security to good jobs and the freedom to form unions, we need bold, new answers to the questions working families confront every day.
The people have spoken. It’s time to get to work and it’s time to raise the minimum wage.
John Sweeney is president of the AFL-CIO.jsweeney@aflcio.org
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